


Raise Your Head

by chellerrific



Category: Bleach
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chellerrific/pseuds/chellerrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peacetime allows for a shift in priorities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raise Your Head

**Author's Note:**

> Guh, headaches and heat are not at all conducive to productivity. Anyway, I’ve spent time on Shinji and Hinamori and developed headcanon for the team at the Ninth but I’ve given comparatively little thought to Rose and Kira, so I wanted to remedy that, to get the full set. (Gotta catch ’em all.) I invited some others to the party while I was at it because mm banter, so that’s where the word count comes from, la la la.

Izuru heard strange noises coming from his captain’s quarters. He found his feet moving towards the sound slowly and quietly, almost involuntarily.

The door was wide open and he was about to peek in when he realized the sound was _laughter_.

Izuru grimaced. What an utter stereotype he had become, failing to recognize the sound of laughter. Still, it _definitely_ wasn’t his captain—someone as concerned with style as Rojuro Otoribashi would never sputter and guffaw in such an unseemly manner.

Strangely, he didn’t hear or otherwise sense his captain in the room with whoever was laughing. The confusion he felt compelled him to lean over and see just who _was_ in there.

As suspected, his captain was nowhere in sight. Sitting on a cushion reading a book was a man Izuru didn’t recognize, and he wasn’t wearing a shihakusho either. He was big—Captain Otoribashi was _tall_ , but as with… _that_ guy, he didn’t give a sense of “bigness” the way this intruder did. The fact that his dark curly hair stuck out from his head in a full starfish sort of shape added to that sense. He was wearing sunglasses despite being indoors—if he’d been in shihakusho, Izuru might have wondered if he’d gotten lost on his way to a Men’s Association meeting Izuru had forgotten about.

Sitting further back, on a table in the corner, was a woman. She was in shadow and for one brief, weird moment, Izuru thought it was Nanao, but a focused look told him no, this woman was a stranger too. The mistake had come from her dark hair pulled away from her face, her glasses, and her general size. She was reading something too, but silently.

In all likelihood, it wasn’t any of his business, but there were strangers in his captain’s quarters, without his captain, and he should at least make sure they were supposed to be there.

He moved a few steps further forward and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but—”

He was interrupted by a renewed outburst of laughter. The man wiped tears of mirth from under his eyes and held the book up over his head, ostensibly for the woman to see. “Look at this! This guy was talking shit, and so the hero just—” He broke off, overcome once again by guffaws. “He just punches the guy out! Like, POW! And—” Whatever else he meant to say, Izuru supposed he’d never know, because laughter overwhelmed the stranger once more.

“Awesome,” the woman said, turning a page in her own book and not even looking up.

Izuru tried again, louder and more insistent this time. “Excuse me, but I must ask who you are and what you’re doing in my captain’s quarters.”

That was enough to make them both look up. The man set the book in his lap face-down and lifted his sunglasses to dry his eyes. “No worries, man. We’re friends of Rose’s. Love Aikawa and Lisa Yadomaru.” He jerked a thumb in turn at himself and the woman, who gave a curt nod.

Izuru was halfway to asking who “Rose” was supposed to be when he remembered that was Captain Otoribashi’s nickname. And these were definitely two more of the Visored. They had been in and around the Seireitei in the time since Aizen’s defeat, even the ones who had not been reinstated, but Izuru had really only met the ones who had, and even then only briefly. He was still getting to know his new captain at this point.

“Oh,” he said, lowering the hand that had unconsciously moved towards Wabisuke. “I apologize. I didn’t recognize you. I’m Izuru Kira, lieutenant of the Third Division.”

“No worries,” Love said again.

Lisa went back to her reading without a word.

“Would you like some tea, or… anything else?” Izuru asked.

A hand came down softly on his shoulder. “Tea would be lovely.”

Izuru looked up. His captain had ghosted up beside him, cat-like, and smiled down at him. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Not at all, Captain,” Izuru said, hurrying to get started.

“For yourself, as well,” the captain added after him. “Join us for a bit.”

“You got any chai?” Love asked. “All though anything’s fine as long as it’s not that Earl Grey crap Chojiro tried to give us.”

Izuru looked. Sencha and maccha in particular were ubiquitous in the Seireitei (except for some reason at the Eighth, where “maccha” seemed to be viewed as some kind of profanity), but he knew he could find almost any kind if he wanted.

This time he didn’t have to go far, as there was some masala chai in the captain’s stores, but no milk. He brewed and served the tea without it, making apologies.

“It’s not _your_ fault,” Love said with a pointed look at Rose.

“Milk in tea, though,” Rose said, his lip curling.

“Chai is traditionally prepared with milk, fool,” Love retorted.

Izuru sat seiza, as did his captain, but Love didn’t shift out of agura, and when Lisa came to join them she sat the same way. Izuru looked away quickly, especially since her skirt was very, _very_ short.

“I’m sure rehashing the same old arguments ad infinitum will eventually lead to a different outcome,” she said dryly, taking a sip of her tea.

Rose made a tiny throat-clearing sound. “Do I need to make introductions?”

“Nah, we got that covered.” Love turned slightly towards Izuru. “So. You’re Rose’s new second. You’re so polite.”

“He says that like it’s such an anomaly. Most people are polite to strangers and superior officers,” Lisa said.

“Says the walking authority on politeness.” Rose gave her a small smirk. “To what do I owe this visit, anyway?”

“Hiyori’s on a tear,” Lisa said. “I miss the days when she was too busy recovering from being cut in two to be loud and destructive twenty-four seven.”

Izuru grimaced. Put like that, he knew who Hiyori was. He’d still been at work performing emergency healing kido on Rangiku and Momo and had seen that part of the battle clearly.

Thinking of that made him think of Shinso and his old captain and he quickly shoved the memories away.

“So naturally you two threw Hachi under the bus and bailed,” Rose said.

“Hey, man, it wasn’t like that,” Love protested at the same time as Lisa said, “Yes.”

Love shot her a look. “We asked him to come with us but he turned us down. He was never that comfortable with the Guard even when he was Kido Corps, and anyway, I think he was planning on going to see Tessai today.”

“Plus he was the logical choice for a shield while we made our escape.”

Rose met Izuru’s eyes over his tea and smiled. “This is terribly gauche of us, isn’t it? Talking about people you don’t even know like you’re not here.”

Izuru shook his head. “You can talk about whatever you like.”

“Look at this. Are all you lieutenants so polite nowadays or are you just the Sojun of this group?” Love asked him.

He wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. “Well, ah, I wouldn’t say I have a monopoly on politeness here, but… no, we’re a pretty diverse bunch.” He thought immediately of Renji and Yachiru but wouldn’t say so out loud.

“I’ll say,” Love agreed. “What’s up with that chick from the Twelfth? She really Kurotsuchi’s _daughter_?”

“Sort of,” Izuru said. “I don’t really know the details, and, ah, frankly have never really tried to find out.”

“I hear you.” Love raised his drink to Izuru in a toast. “Things sure have changed.”

“And yet in all this time they couldn’t be bothered to hire an interior decorator.” Rose shook his head.

“I’m sure that was ever the first thing on someone’s mind,” Lisa said.

“It’s been over a hundred years!” Rose pointed out. “Surely they had a minute to think about window treatments.”

“Man, I’ve been alive way longer than that and never once gave a thought to them,” Love said.

“Indeed,” Rose said delicately.

“If you’d like to do some redesign work on the division, I’m sure I could arrange it,” Izuru said. It would probably be okay; the captain’s tastes ran towards the sleek and understated. It wasn’t like he was Captain Kyoraku, who would probably want to paint bright pink hearts all over everything.

Rose looked excited, albeit in a somewhat restrained way. “You think so? Would you help?”

“Of course,” Izuru said. It would still likely have to be small, not massive rebuilds or anything, but it might be good for morale, which in his opinion made it worth the expense.

“Wow,” said Lisa. “Rose trusts your taste. I’m impressed.”

It was, objectively, a little silly—there were any number of shinigami who cared about style far, far more than he did—but Izuru felt flattered anyway.

“I trust Captain Otoribashi to do what’s best for our division,” he said simply. And it was true. Izuru had his own demons but he had to put them aside and trust in his superior.

“Good luck with that. We couldn’t even trust him to get lunch sometimes,” Love groused. “He’d change your order if he thought what you wanted was tacky.”

“You always use way too much soy sauce,” Rose admonished.

“It’s delicious, okay?”

Izuru clapped a hand over his mouth, but he couldn’t keep a small titter from escaping. “I apologize,” he said quickly.

“Why? We’re hilarious,” Love said with absolute sincerity.

“A real laugh riot.” Lisa sounded considerably more wry.

“Feel free to laugh at them all you like,” Rose said, sweeping out a hand toward his guests. “Heaven knows I do.”

“Rose has always been jealous of us because we’re the pretty ones,” Love explained.

Lisa gave a sharp nod.

“I should kick you out,” Rose said a little huffily. “How did you get in, anyway?”

“Didn’t you know? They let us go pretty much wherever we want to,” Lisa explained. “It’s a combination of falling over themselves apologizing for being world-class jack-offs before and being terrified of what we might do to them.”

“That and Lisa flashed your sentries,” Love put in, and Lisa gave another nod.

Izuru nearly spat out his tea. “Wait, seriously?”

“You wanna see ’em too?” Lisa said impassively, one hand going to the hem of her shirt.

“We’re kidding,” Love told Izuru, giving his knee a light pat. “About the sentry thing. She’d probably really flash you.”

Lisa shrugged.

“That’s… no, thank you,” Izuru said.

“Are you sure? It’s natural to be curious,” she said. “I would be if I hadn’t already seen them a million times.” She paused thoughtfully. “Conservative estimate.”

“Please stop harassing my lieutenant,” Rose said. “How did I earn this honor over the others, anyway?”

“Oh. I wanted to drop these off.” Lisa reached back to pick up a plastic shopping bag and hand it over to Rose.

He took it and peered inside. “I can’t help but notice this is only about _half_ of my missing manga.”

“We’re not done with the other stuff yet,” Love said.

“One would think my moving out would encourage you to purchase your own copies.”

“One would think,” Love agreed. “Anyway we had to rule out Shinji ’cause Hiyori’s probably called to bitch him out by now, and we knew your office would be quieter than Kensei’s ’cause Mashiro wouldn’t be in it.”

“Ah, I feel so flattered. Mashiro will pitch a fit if she finds out you were here and didn’t stop by, though.”

“May I ask a question?” Izuru said. “It’s a bit personal.”

“Oh?” Lisa leaned forward slightly.

“Not like that,” he said quickly, sure his face was red. “I was just wondering, why didn’t more of you choose to resume your former positions? You likely would have been accommodated, like Lieutenant Kuna.”

“Not me,” Love said, a rather cynical smile twisting his lips.

Lisa waved a hand. “They didn’t really want us spares. Mashiro is a special case.”

“‘Special’ about sums that girl up,” Love said with a nod.

“And to be honest, we didn’t really want our old posts back,” Lisa went on. “The guys who took them did so out of some sense of obligation, but me? The Eighth is fine. Their leadership is solid. I’m not needed, so why try to squeeze into a place I don’t fit?” She sounded matter-of-fact, but then, so had she when she was offering to flash Izuru, so he wasn’t sure what to make of that.

“Hiyori would rather chew glass than come back here on a long-term basis,” Love said. “Or get anywhere near that Kurotsuchi.”

“Those were very nearly her exact words, too,” Rose added to Izuru, “except with more swearing and beating up on Shinji.”

“As for Hachi,” Love went on, “the Kido Corps is a different beast. I don’t think he’d have ever felt right coming back without Tessai anyway.”

Izuru nodded. “I see. Thank you.”

Lisa raised her arms overhead, stretching. “We really had better go pay our respects at Five and Nine, though.”

“Five too?” Love raised an eyebrow.

“Sure. Then we can laugh at Shinji _and_ gauge how obnoxious Hiyori’s going to be by the time we get back.”

Love gave a bit of a nod. “Cool. Well, thanks for the tea and, uh, I’m borrowing this.” He raised his book to show Rose.

Lisa waved hers at him too.

Rose let out a beleaguered sigh but didn’t comment.

“It was nice meeting you,” Love said to Izuru. “I can see why Rose likes you.”

“Just to be clear, the flashing thing isn’t a standing offer,” Lisa said.

“I, uh, wasn’t expecting it to be,” Izuru assured her.

The other Visoreds left, disappearing into shunpo once they were outside.

“Goodness me. I hope they didn’t put you off too much,” Rose said, drawing Izuru’s attention back to him.

“No, on the contrary, I enjoyed that.” He didn’t want to try to explain that it made him feel better seeing that his captain had so many close friends.

His former captain had been the opposite. Nobody liked him, except Rangiku and, to his eternal regret, Izuru himself. It wasn’t like with Aizen and Tosen; almost everybody had liked them, no one suspected them of wrongdoing. Their lieutenants were blameless. Izuru had stood by Ichimaru even when it was obvious to everyone he was up to no good.

“What are you thinking about with such an expression on your face?” Rose asked with an inquisitive tilt of his head.

“Ah, nothing, really,” Izuru said quickly, wondering just what had been on his face. “Just… grateful for the stability you’ve brought to the Third.”

“It wasn’t too hard,” Rose said, “considering what a good job you did holding things together whilst chaos reigned.”

Izuru searched his captain’s face for any trace of mockery but could not seem to find any. The assessment was far kinder than Izuru deserved. He didn’t know how he could hold _anything_ together when all he wanted to do was fall apart. He felt certain that the only reason he’d been allowed to keep his post was that the Guard could not afford further instability and loss of leadership in the face of the threat Aizen posed. Why he’d been left to it after Aizen was out of the picture and the division had a real captain again—well, that was anyone’s guess.

He’d wanted to resign. He was not worthy of this post. Renji and Shuhei had talked him out if it. How, he still was not sure, but liquor was involved, which probably accounted for nearly all of it.

But all he said was, “Thank you for the compliment, Captain.”

“I mean it,” Rose insisted. “Taking the role of your own volition is a challenge under the best of circumstances. Being thrust into it when you’re not prepared must have been a nightmare, especially on top of everything else. You’ve been coping remarkably well, maybe better than your similarly-burdened colleagues.”

“That’s not entirely fair,” Izuru said quickly, trying not to take that as an insult on Shuhei and Momo’s behalf. Sure, Shuhei had barely slept since Tosen’s defection, but that was because he dealt with pain by finding more work to do. “Lieutenant Hisagi had more to deal with than I did at his division, and Lieutenant Hinamori had to deal with much more… personally.”

Talking about Momo was difficult. She was still in recovery and for all it made no sense, he felt guilty. Like somehow he should have realized that Aizen had switched places with her, even when no one else did—he’d been _right there_ , with his hands nearly _on_ her. No matter how often he was reassured of the absolute power of both Kyoka Suigetsu’s illusions and Aizen’s deviousness, he couldn’t get past it. Something—there had to have been _something_ he missed…

Besides, even if he accepted there was nothing he could have done then, he’d raised his sword to her of his own volition, no trickery involved. He still hadn’t forgiven himself for that. He wasn’t sure that was the kind of thing for which a person ever _should_ be forgiven.

No, he wasn’t handling things well at all.

“I meant no offense to either of them,” Rose assured him. He regarded Izuru thoughtfully for a moment. “Let me just say this: everybody made mistakes. Every last person involved in this whole sordid mess. Many of them were fundamentally unavoidable, but some were not. It’s a shame. It’s a tragedy. People died. We should learn from our mistakes but we should not let ourselves be consumed by them. What’s done is done. That’s no comfort but it’s the fact of the matter.”

“Yes, sir.” Izuru still felt miserable.

“Very well. About this remodeling. What did you have in mind?”

Izuru knew a change of subject when he heard one, but he was grateful for it. “Perhaps new furniture, new paint… I’m always hitting my knee on this one table in the common room, but I wasn’t allowed to move it because… somebody… thought it was amusing how often people who should have learned better bumped into it.” He knew why he hadn’t chucked it first opportunity, but now he was more than ready to throw it onto the trash pile.

“That’s a good start. Let’s take a look at the budget and see how much we can requisition for this venture, hm?”

Izuru nodded. He understood what his captain was trying to tell him: if Gin Ichimaru still haunted his steps, it was only because Izuru let him. There was no looming war, and his future at the Third was secure as long as he wanted it to be. There was room now for discussions of things like furniture.

Rose had somehow managed to let go of a century of bitterness for the sake of the Third. Izuru could afford to start letting go too—and it was counterproductive for him to beat himself up about his failings anymore. If he really wanted to be a better and more worthy person, then he needed to start doing _that_ instead.

Izuru stood. “I’ll go get my ledgers, sir.”

**Author's Note:**

> Love and I share the same taste in tea (and feelings on soy sauce). Deepest apologies to fans of Earl Grey. I can see Yama-jii reprimanding Chojiro about it a lot.


End file.
